Endless Roses

At least a thousand. Roses, that is. That was my estimate to how many it took to cover my lawn with them this morning. Or last night. Whenever it was that the creep had come in and set them all up. There were also plenty of petals scattered on the porch, so if anything I was guessing under.

There was precisely zero chance that it wasn't Ralph that had done it. That guy had written the book on “creepy stalker” and had left out a few choice chapters for his own, private use. You think I'm talking metaphorically, but I'm fairly sure he has actually been published. MRA's and incels will pay a lot for something to confirm their biases.

It has been at least fifty years since I exchanged any sort of civil words with Ralph. Our dialogues usually started with me saying “What the hell?” or “You know I have a restraining order.” and then went downhill from there. The tricky thing about restraining orders is that they're hard to maintain when you're both constantly switching identities.

When I'd signed up for immortality, this is not a downside I'd had anywhere in mind.

Ralph and I had been friends some time in the later half of the previous century. Or at least, I thought we'd been. We'd both been converted by the same Magister around the same time. I guess that gave him some feeling that we were connected. To be honest, I had the same thought. Until I found out how much of an ass he really was. We parted ways only ten years later.

Or we would have, if he'd actually listened to me. Instead, he would come back, track me down at least once a year. Perform some ridiculous display like the roses. There would probably be some card in my mailbox begging me to “take him back”, as if we'd ever been together in the first place. Let me tell you, most people learn a thing or two after a hundred years. At least I like to think I have.

Not Ralph, though. One hundred and thirty-five years old and he still acted like a lovesick teenager, and not the cutesy romantic kind from the movies. One of these days, I might wind up having to kill him. Assuming I could figure out how.